Help with path to BA degree

[Kelley]

I have been reading this forum as well as another one for about a year and I have been inspired to get started. I have no excuses that can hold me back from achieving my goal of earning my BA degree. I have heard it said that a goal without a plan is just a daydream and I am tried of daydreaming! I need a little help with the plan.

I will be either enrolling at TESC or Excelsior but I am going to wait to get a lot of my general classes knocked out so I can make sure I am done within one year.

I have a few classes to transfer in from almost 20 years ago: All lower level
English 101 - 3 credits
Micro Economics - 3 credits
Macro Economic - 3 credits
College Math - 3 credits
Psyc - 3 credits
History of the Soviet Union - 3 credits **
** I took this one at the end of the cold war! We didn't use our books much at all but brought in the local new paper to get history in the making!

I am a licensed insurance agent with both my property/casualty and llife/health license. I also have a lot of FEMA credits and I will be getting as many of these as I possible can transfer either transfered raw to TESC or through FCC (which is a my local college) to Excelsior.

I want my degree to be in History but it does not need to be. I will be able to move forward with my career path regardless of what the degree is in. I just want to get it done as quickly as possible. I have a daughter turning 16 soon so I would love to be able to get the hang of testing out so I can help her do the same thing for a lot of her basic courses.

I want to test out of all courses and from what I have read that does seem doable. I also would like to keep cost down as much as possible so I am wondering if it is possible to use CELP and DANTES for all of my courses.

To sum up my questions:

Can it be done using just CLEP and DANTES? I know that Excelsior has a Literacy 1 credit course...so except that one.

How many upper level credits are needed for a BA degree?

I am going to start next week with the CLEP Growth and Human Development. Any recommendations of what to take next. I am weak in Sciences.

I will take any and all advise! Thanks in advance for your input!

[gcalvin]

I'll give you the caveat that probably everybody will (or should): don't take anything you read here as gospel, and check everything with an advisor at the school or schools of your choice.

CLEP and DANTES can get you most of the way there, but probably will not be enough. All of the CLEP exams are lower level, and I don't think there are enough DANTES upper level exams to make up what you need. You will probably need to take some Excelsior College Exams (ECE) as well.

If you choose Excelsior College, there is the Written English Requirement, which no CLEP or DANTES exam can fulfill. Probably the easiest option there is the ECE English Composition exam. It's basically three essays in three hours, and it's worth 6 credits total.

If you go with the Excelsior Business program, you will have to take their Business Strategy online course, as there is no longer any exam to cover that requirement. This is a new requirement as of September of last year, if I recall correctly. It's a 15-week, 3-credit online course. Many of your other core business requirements are prerequisites.

If you pursue an Excelsior Liberal Arts degree, there is another new requirement as of this year -- Research and Writing in the Majors. This requires another one-credit course that mainly revolves around writing a 2000-word research paper. Information Literacy and the Written English Requirement are prerequisites, so you'll want to get them out of the way early.

[Kelley]

Thanks for the great advice gcalvin! I do have a 3 credit English 101 from years ago. Do you think that is enough to fulfil the english requirement for Excelsior or do I need to have 6 credits?

Thanks again!

[ImustStudy]

Originally Posted by Kelley

Thanks for the great advice gcalvin! I do have a 3 credit English 101 from years ago. Do you think that is enough to fulfil the english requirement for Excelsior or do I need to have 6 credits?

Thanks again!

It is my understanding that Excelsior will accept the Freshman Comp for the written english requirement. Does anyone have info on this?

[barcotta]

How many upper level credits are needed for a BA degree?

I am going to start next week with the CLEP Growth and Human Development. Any recommendations of what to take next. I am weak in Sciences.

I would recommend that you register at the Excelsior site (since that is one of the two you are considering). They have several pdf guidebooks that explain how many credits are needed in various areas for various degrees.

I believe the answer to your upper-level credits question is 30 for the Excelsior liberal arts degrees. It's less for the business degrees. If you're going to take CLEP Human Growth and Development--you'll find plenty of posts here suggesting that you follow immediately with CLEP Psychology, Educational Psychology and Sociology--assuming you need them. If you haven't already, you should sign up for InstantCert. You could probably knock off those three exams in one session.

I, too, decided to stop daydreaming around the 20 year mark--as have others on this site. Interesting...

[barbara2bba]

I was able to fulfill the writing requirement at Excelsior from an English composition course I took 23 years ago. I started out with only 12 credits, so similar starting point!

Good Luck.

[Geezer]

Thanks for the great advice gcalvin! I do have a 3 credit English 101 from years ago. Do you think that is enough to fulfil the english requirement for Excelsior or do I need to have 6 credits?

My Eng 101 from 30 years ago satisfied the Excelsior requirement for their Business Degree. Those three credits were all that was needed for that componenet. I had taken Eng 102 as well 30 years ago, but later dropped that from my official transcript since it was bringing down my GPA. Only Eng 101 was needed. Good luck and have fun!!!

[studyhard]

Just an FYI...I'm getting my History BA through TESC and no, I can't CLEP out of it entirely. There are not enough upper-level history CLEPs or DSSTs to be able to do so. I'll have to take two online courses directly from TESC.

[Kelley]

Thank you all for your help. I am taking down a lot of info! I signed up for IC so I am starting the flash cards and I got a couple of used textbooks for like 50 cents so I will use those a bit too.

I am scared but excited and I begin this journey! I can't wait to post the results of my first test. I am looking forward to hearing about everyone's successes!

Thanks again.

[japhy4529]

Originally Posted by Kelley

I have been reading this forum as well as another one for about a year and I have been inspired to get started. I have no excuses that can hold me back from achieving my goal of earning my BA degree. I have heard it said that a goal without a plan is just a daydream and I am tried of daydreaming! I need a little help with the plan.

I will be either enrolling at TESC or Excelsior but I am going to wait to get a lot of my general classes knocked out so I can make sure I am done within one year.

I have a few classes to transfer in from almost 20 years ago: All lower level
English 101 - 3 credits
Micro Economics - 3 credits
Macro Economic - 3 credits
College Math - 3 credits
Psyc - 3 credits
History of the Soviet Union - 3 credits **
** I took this one at the end of the cold war! We didn't use our books much at all but brought in the local new paper to get history in the making!

I am a licensed insurance agent with both my property/casualty and llife/health license. I also have a lot of FEMA credits and I will be getting as many of these as I possible can transfer either transfered raw to TESC or through FCC (which is a my local college) to Excelsior.

I want my degree to be in History but it does not need to be. I will be able to move forward with my career path regardless of what the degree is in. I just want to get it done as quickly as possible. I have a daughter turning 16 soon so I would love to be able to get the hang of testing out so I can help her do the same thing for a lot of her basic courses.

I want to test out of all courses and from what I have read that does seem doable. I also would like to keep cost down as much as possible so I am wondering if it is possible to use CELP and DANTES for all of my courses.

To sum up my questions:

Can it be done using just CLEP and DANTES? I know that Excelsior has a Literacy 1 credit course...so except that one.

How many upper level credits are needed for a BA degree?

I am going to start next week with the CLEP Growth and Human Development. Any recommendations of what to take next. I am weak in Sciences.

I will take any and all advise! Thanks in advance for your input!

Yes, it can be done via CLEP and DANTES if you go for a BA in Liberal Arts through TESC. TESC does not require any upper level credits for the general BA degree. One is only required to complete 100 and 200 level courses for this degree.

The following info applies to Excelsior (or COSC), but NOT TESC:
If you are looking to accumulate a lot of credits in a short period of time, look into the GRE subject exams. While all of these exams are difficult, the Psych GRE is generally the most "doable" (at least according to the consensus on DL boards). More info may regarding the subject GRE may be found on the Excelsior site.

In addition, Excelsior offers a number of ECE nursing exams. Interestingly enough, you do not need to be a nurse (or nursing student) to take these exams. Three of the ECE nursing exams are worth 8 credits each (of which, two offer upper level credit!).


Good luck!

- Tom